Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) Tort Law Syllabus

Tort Law syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Tort Law in Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Negligence: Duty and Breach

   4 topics

   • Duty of Care
     • Neighbour principle and the Caparo three-stage test
     • Novel duty situations and incremental approach
   • Breach of Duty
     • The reasonable person standard
     • Risk factors: likelihood, severity, cost of precautions, utility
     • Professional standard (Bolam, Bolitho)
   • Causation
     • Factual causation: but for test, multiple causes
     • Legal causation and novus actus interveniens
   • Remoteness of Damage (The Wagon Mound)
2. 2

   Special Duty Situations

   4 topics

   • Pure Economic Loss
     • Negligent misstatement (Hedley Byrne v Heller)
     • Assumption of responsibility
   • Psychiatric Injury
     • Primary and secondary victims (Alcock criteria)
   • Omissions and Acts of Third Parties
   • Liability of Public Bodies
3. 3

   Defences and Specific Torts

   4 topics

   • Defences to Negligence
     • Contributory negligence
     • Volenti non fit injuria and illegality
   • Occupiers' Liability
     • Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 (lawful visitors)
     • Occupiers' Liability Act 1984 (trespassers)
   • Nuisance and Rylands v Fletcher
     • Private and public nuisance
     • The rule in Rylands v Fletcher
   • Trespass to the Person and to Land
4. 4

   Vicarious Liability and Remedies

   4 topics

   • Vicarious Liability
     • Employment relationship and akin to employment
     • Course of employment and the close connection test
   • Employers' Primary Liability
   • Damages in Tort
     • Compensatory principle and heads of loss
   • Defamation and Privacy

Tort Law flashcards for Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)

21 of 51 cards from the Tort Law deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. What are the three elements a claimant must establish to succeed in the tort of negligence?

   (1) The defendant owed the claimant a duty of care; (2) the defendant breached that duty; and (3) the breach caused damage to the claimant that was not too remote.

2. What test does Caparo Industries plc v Dickman (1990) establish for imposing a NOVEL duty of care?

   A three-stage test: (1) reasonable foreseeability of harm; (2) a relationship of proximity between claimant and defendant; and (3) it must be fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty.

3. Following Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire (2018), how should courts approach duty of care in NON-novel situations?

   Courts use an incremental approach by analogy to established precedent; the full Caparo three-stage test is reserved for genuinely novel cases, not applied as a universal test.

4. What 'neighbour principle' did Lord Atkin formulate in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932)?

   You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your 'neighbour' — persons so closely and directly affected by your act that you ought reasonably to have them in contemplation.

5. How is the standard of care in breach of duty defined (the 'reasonable man' standard)?

   The standard is that of the reasonable person performing the activity in question — an objective standard (Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks). The defendant must do what a reasonable person would do and avoid what they would not.

6. What standard of care applies to a defendant professing a special skill, per Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee?

   They are judged by the standard of the ordinary competent member of that profession. A professional is not negligent if they acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of opinion in that field (the Bolam test).

7. How did Bolitho v City and Hackney HA (1997) qualify the Bolam test?

   The body of professional opinion relied upon must itself be capable of withstanding logical analysis (be 'responsible, reasonable and respectable'); a court can reject a practice that is not logically defensible.

8. List the four key factors courts weigh when deciding whether the standard of care has been breached.

   (1) Magnitude/likelihood of harm; (2) seriousness of potential injury; (3) cost and practicability of precautions; and (4) social utility/value of the defendant's conduct.

9. What standard of care applies to children and to learner drivers respectively?

   A child is judged against a reasonable child of the same age (Mullin v Richards). A learner driver is judged against the standard of a reasonably competent qualified driver — no allowance for inexperience (Nettleship v Weston).

10. State the 'but for' test for factual causation and the case it derives from.

    But for the defendant's breach, would the claimant have suffered the harm? If the harm would have occurred anyway, factual causation is not established (Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Hospital Management Committee).

11. How did Bonnington Castings v Wardlaw and McGhee v National Coal Board modify causation where 'but for' fails?

    Where harm has cumulative causes, it is enough that the breach 'materially contributed' to the harm (Bonnington); McGhee extended this to a material increase in the RISK of harm in industrial disease cases.

12. What causation principle did Fairchild v Glenhaven Funeral Services establish for mesothelioma?

    Where multiple employers negligently exposed the claimant to asbestos and science cannot identify which exposure caused the single-fibre mesothelioma, a defendant who materially increased the risk is liable (the Fairchild exception).

13. What is a novus actus interveniens and what effect does it have on legal causation?

    A new intervening act that breaks the chain of causation, relieving the defendant of liability for subsequent harm. It may be an act of a third party, the claimant, or a natural event that is unforeseeable and unreasonable.

14. What is the test for remoteness of damage established in The Wagon Mound (No 1) (1961)?

    Damage is too remote unless the TYPE/kind of harm was reasonably foreseeable at the time of the breach. Foreseeability of consequences, not directness, governs remoteness (overruling Re Polemis).

15. Explain the rule from Hughes v Lord Advocate regarding the manner and extent of foreseeable harm.

    The precise manner in which harm occurs and its exact extent need not be foreseeable — only the TYPE of harm. If the kind of injury is foreseeable, the defendant is liable even though it happened in an unforeseeable way.

16. State the 'thin skull' (eggshell skull) rule in remoteness.

    The defendant must take the victim as they find them. Once some harm of the foreseeable type is foreseeable, the defendant is liable for the full extent of injury even if a pre-existing weakness made it far worse (Smith v Leech Brain).

17. Why are claims for pure economic loss caused by negligent ACTS generally not recoverable?

    For policy reasons — to avoid indeterminate liability ('liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class'). Pure economic loss not consequent on physical damage to the claimant's own person/property is generally irrecoverable (Spartan Steel v Martin).

18. When can pure economic loss caused by a negligent MISSTATEMENT be recovered, per Hedley Byrne v Heller?

    Where there is a 'special relationship' based on an assumption of responsibility by the defendant and reasonable reliance by the claimant, the statement was given in a context requiring care, and there was no valid disclaimer.

19. What four-part 'special relationship' guidance for negligent misstatement comes from Caparo and later cases?

    (1) The defendant knew the statement would be communicated to the claimant; (2) for a specific transaction or type of transaction; (3) the claimant would likely rely on it without independent inquiry; and (4) the claimant did so rely to their detriment.

20. Distinguish a 'primary victim' from a 'secondary victim' in psychiatric injury claims (Page v Smith).

    A primary victim is within the zone of physical danger (or reasonably believes they are); a secondary victim witnesses harm to another and is not personally endangered. Primary victims need only foreseeability of physical harm.

21. State the Alcock control mechanisms a SECONDARY victim must satisfy to recover for psychiatric injury.

    (1) A close tie of love and affection with the primary victim; (2) proximity in time and space to the event or its immediate aftermath; (3) perception by their own unaided senses; and (4) a sudden shock causing a recognised psychiatric illness.

See more Tort Law flashcards →

Planning Tort Law for Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)

Tort Law (Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)) FAQ